BILLINGS, April 30, 2014 – Sun & Sandstone, a national and local literary journal for undergraduate students published by RMC students with funding from ASRMC (Associated Students of Rocky Mountain College), offered its first issue of 150 copies at an editors’ table Tuesday in Bair Family Student Center. Interested readers may request a copy via the Internet at https://www.facebook.com/sunandsandstone.

Alex Emerson (’14) of West Des Moines, Iowa, Kiffin Irwin (’14) of Colorado Springs, Colo., and Anna Gilligan (‘14) of Peosta, Iowa, inaugurated work on Sun & Sandstone last fall as the first three of several student editors. Assistant Professor of English Andy Farkas is the faculty advisor.

Since 1967, and with predecessor issues back to 1962, RMC published Soliloquy, the College literary journal, under the guidance of Linaya Leaf, retired professor of English and theatre arts.

Sun & Sandstone differs in construction from the venerable, prevenient Soliloquy. “This is national,” said Emerson, “with 70 percent of selections from undergraduates unassociated with RMC. We no longer have art content. Also, it’s not a competition with prizewinners; the competition is to get in it.” For the first issue, less than half of national submissions were accepted.

Irwin said, “It’s really cool to take a Rocky journal to the next level and work with national submissions.”

“We began to get national submissions right from the get-go,” said Emerson, “through newpages.com and Yahoo! groups. It was so much fun reading all the work by students.”

The favorite fiction story of editor Lindi Griffel (’15) of Idaho Falls, Idaho, was a satire with roots in literature by Cara Yacino of Clark University, in which a student creates a perfect academic paper and perishes from the effort.